The Role of Basic Skills and Literacy Practices in Transitions to Adulthood
The Role of Basic Skills and Literacy Practices in Transitions to Adulthood
Mark Cieslik and Donald Simpson
Paper presented at the British Educational Research Association Annual Conference, University of Warwick, 6-9 September 2006
Introduction
In an earlier paper we discussed how poor basic skills (competencies in reading, writing, oral communication and information technology) had been associated with ‘poor transitions’ but that this had been under-researched 1. This was surprising given the significant numbers of young people in the UK having poor skills (Moser 1999; Basic Skills Agency 2000; Bounds 2003) and the emphasis that governments have placed on the skills agenda (Johnson 2006). Concerns about basic skills and their impact on transitions have also been raised elsewhere (Sauver les Lettres 2005).
Our earlier paper illustrated how poor skills are linked to negative experiences of formal education and shapes distinctive learning identities which frame a reticence towards work and training. At key points in the life course this demand for opportunities is an important dimension of marginal transitions from school-to-work. Our discussion of decision-making and agency contrasted with accounts that traditionally placed greater explanatory emphasis on the structured supply of employment and educational opportunities (MacDonald and Marsh 2005; Furlong and Cartmel 2004; Roberts 2003).
This paper continues the investigation of basic skills but extends the analysis to include marginal and more successful transitions. We suggest that some individuals with multiple skill problems experience a wide range of difficulties but for most the relationship between skills and transitions are less obvious. Similar skill competencies can work differently for different individuals and can vary from one context to another. Skills work in relation to the resources of individuals – they are mediated – and thus the influence of similar competencies on transitions varies greatly. We also show that individuals adapt to their skill strengths and weaknesses which influences the impact that skill competencies can have on transition outcomes.
These adaptations are long term processes and provide an insight into the resourcefulness and creativity of individuals growing up in areas of multiple disadvantage. Though the structural context of opportunities necessarily frames routes into adulthood, our research highlights the significance of learning and agential processes in transitions.
Explaining transitions to adulthood
Early studies into youth transitions focused on school-to-work careers (Roberts 1968; Ashton and Field 1976) and were connected to wider debates about social class, individual life chances and social reproduction. Subsequently, research has also focused on other career routes such as leisure, housing, domestic and personal relationships (Coles 1995; Banks et al. 1992) and employed more sophisticated concepts of social identity (Rattansi and Phoenix 1997). The changing economic, cultural and institutional landscape of contemporary societies has popularized the use of risk, reflexivity and individualization concepts (Cieslik and Pollock 2002). For some this means young people may have more control over their transitions (Muggleton 2000) and for others such choices are still largely circumscribed by structural processes (Roberts et al. 1994). Though growing up in a disadvantaged area conditions careers our interviewees reflexively managed their transitions and so agency was central to the shaping of routes into adulthood.
Transitions, basic skills and literacy practices
Globalisation and the need for the ‘upskilling’ of the workforce has generated much debate about young people’s skills and education (Brown and Lauder 2001; Spilsbury 2002; Kelly 2005). Despite this there have been few studies into basic skills save for the survey work of Bynner and colleagues (Bynner and Steedman 1995; Bynner and Parsons 1998) that noted how those with poorer skills exhibit greater vulnerability to unemployment, early child bearing, depression and social exclusion (Parsons and Bynner 2002). Though essential reading, this research is unable to chart how young people actively manage their skill strengths and weaknesses and develop coping strategies which in turn may influence transitions outcomes. Though we are sensitive to the conditioning effects of past biographical experiences and social contexts we also wished to investigate the complex role of individual agency in transitions. The critical realist work of Margaret Archer was influential in offering a way of integrating the interplay of agency and structure across biographical time (Archer 1988; 2000). We also draw on the concepts of learning identity and learning career (Bloomer and Hodkinson 2000) which allows us to understand the place of learning across individual biographies and transitions, linking formative learning experiences with later dispositions towards learning and opportunities.
Though Bynner and colleagues have suggested correlations between skill levels and transition outcomes other work on individual case studies have suggested a more complex relationship (Furlong et al. 2003, Williamson 2004). Some of this ‘variability’ is predicated on data which suggests that some young people with good skills experience marginal routes whilst many with poorer skills are more successful (Furlong and Cartmel 2004, p.22; McDonald and Marsh 2005, chapt. 3). Accordingly these researchers tend to discount ‘skills’ from having much of an explanatory role in transitions to adulthood. We contend that this is premature. As we go onto show, skills do have a role in influencing transitions but they do so as literacy practices rather than as isolated skill competencies. As Barton and others have documented (Barton and Hamilton 1998) individuals employ their skills in relation to interactional processes related to their values, attitudes and features of their social identities. They used this formulation to understand how individuals use literacy practices as situated resources to accomplish everyday tasks such as shopping, cooking and travel. We develop this concept of literacy practice by using it to understand how skills may have different values for particular individuals and in particular settings and hence a differing impact on transition experiences. Depending on the individual employing the skill and the context of use a particular skill may facilitate or constrain particular transition experiences, hence they may have a particular ‘exchange value’. Literacy practices, in influencing change in transitions may be seen as a form of capital - a form of literacy capital.
Methodology
A sample of 55 adults aged between 20 and 30 was interviewed between April 2003 and July of 2004. These sample members had undertaken basic skills learning in a community, college or work setting. This had either been ‘embedded’ in training such as New Deal or was dedicated basic skills provision. In total 24 men and 31 women were interviewed and all live in the North East of England in disadvantaged communities. In-depth, qualitative life-history interviews were used (Bertaux and Thompson 1997; Hubbard 2001) to construct biographical ‘life grids’ (Webster et al. 2004) that charted the transition experiences of each individual 2. These were understood in relation to major career routes such as leisure, school-to-work, family and housing. The research aimed to investigate the relative significance of skill competencies to the structuring of marginal and more successful transitions to adulthood. The project also examined how transition experiences such as post-compulsory education, training and unemployment could influence skill levels of young people. A further aim was to investigate the construction of dispositions to learning and young people’s demand for learning across the life course.
Understanding marginal and successful transitions to adulthood
The structuring of transitions
There were key differences between sample members who had pursued marginal careers and those who were more successful 3. The data supports earlier research which links social background and the structure of opportunities to different transition routes (Jones 2002; Furlong et al. 2003). The quality of educational provision, employment opportunities and home environment all influenced routes into adulthood. Marginalization was associated with disaffection at school, educational under-achievement, conflictual parental relationships, early child bearing for young women and intermittent unemployment for the men. The more marginalized moved into social housing and established relationships with individuals from similar disadvantaged social backgrounds. Though not a unilinear process, interviewees experienced a series of events in different career routes which cumulatively contributed to the process of marginalization or success in transitions to adulthood (Bynner and Parsons 2005).
Those with ‘more successful’ transitions had less negative experiences of schooling and better records of attendance and attainment. They also had parents who supported them in their studies. Both males and females pursued further education or training at 16 years of age and were more successful in gaining waged employment and work based training. The more successful transitions were also associated with less family conflict and parental divorce and family members provided various forms of material and emotional support. Many of the parents of this ‘more successful’ sample were in waged employment and assisted their children in gaining employment. The more successful women were also more likely to be childless at time of interview or gave birth later than the marginal sample. The more successful also tended to have long term relationships with partners in waged employment and in some cases had been able to move into privately owned accommodation.
Though we can generalize about relationships between social structures and transitions, we concur with recent research (Webster et al. 2004) that suggests at an individual level there is much diversity between different career routes and much change over biographical time. Some experienced short lived episodes of marginality within their school-to-work careers whilst enjoying much more success in their leisure, housing and domestic careers. The opposite also occurred, young people securing employment whilst having restricted leisure experiences and remaining in their home of origin throughout their twenties. We go onto suggest that some of this variability of transition experiences stems from the functioning of basic skills. Although there was evidence that those with a wider range of more severe skill problems experienced more marginal careers, one cannot always predict the effect of a particular skill competency on transition experiences. Basic skills are mediated by other processes and function to influence transitions in indirect ways. This subtle, latent functioning of skills is the subject of the next section, but first we discuss some occasions where skills impacted on transitions in more direct and transparent ways.
Literacy practices and transitions to adulthood
Critical literacy events
Some recent studies have discussed the critical moments or turning points such as bereavement or divorce which influence the direction of transitions (Thomson et al. 2002;Ball et al. 2000). Our data suggested some instances where skills could work in this way. These were events where the ability to perform particular tasks, skill competency itself, was a key influence on the course of a career. Leslie for example spoke about her oral communication skills at job interviews.
Interviewer: What happened at the interview…Could you answer the questions?
Leslie Marsh: No, I was a bit quiet.
Interviewer: They said that you were a bit quiet?
Leslie Marsh: Yeah…I didn’t know what to say…I just knew I could’ve got it (the job).
Leslie was frustrated with her skills as she had the ability to do a number of jobs but lacked the skills to pass the interviews. Gaining full-time work and moving off benefit would have transformed her life but she had been, ‘held back’ by her skills. Other interviewees in employment provided similar accounts.
I’m, sick of this job I wanna change, but find something that I can do. Dave who works here has gone into the police and the girl I live with now is a civilian in the police so…But I failed the test…They asked if I wanted to go back and see where I went wrong and that… Couldn’t be bothered…at the moment don’t feel confident enough to go in for it again. (Steve Marshall)
Joining the police force would have dramatically changed Steve’s life. It would have provided a better paid more secure job and one that was more interesting than his current unskilled work. Another common event for interviewees was their repeated attempts to pass their driving test. Many had repeatedly failed their driving examinations. Those who had passed their tests had often gained jobs that involved driving and they also enjoyed wider independence through car use such as easier shopping and visits to family and friends.
These critical literacy events were instances where the (in)ability to perform key tasks reflected the technical competency of individuals. Though common across the sample such problematic events tended to occur more in the lives of interviewees with multiple skill problems and was associated with the more marginal transitions. Failing examinations at school, in training and failing aptitude tests at work were all linked to problems with skills. Nevertheless the data suggested that overall, it was quite rare for skills on their own to act as ‘switchman’ and cause a fundamental shift in the direction of transitions. Instead skills function in more gradual ways over long periods of time and in conjunction with other processes.
The mediation of basic skills
The data suggested that skills are mediated by the sort of individual employing them (their gender, age and class) and the social context in which the skills are used such as work and home.
When I went in, they said, me boss said (to another worker) ‘Show her the ropes, what to do and that’. Well they never really. I had to keep asking her all the time, ‘What do you do and how do you do it’. And then, ‘that I wasn’t doing it properly’…Whereas I didn’t really know, because I hadn’t been told, they didn’t really have the right to complain really. (Sally Watson)
Some of these problems Sally felt were linked to the fact that she spoke quite slowly and took time processing information. But also that she received little training and assistance to help her cope with the work. After three months she felt disillusioned by these experiences and left the job.
Women in the sample had also developed their own gendered expectations of their skill development and were self critical of how they performed their traditional roles. Ann spoke about her skills and their impact on her role as a mother caring for her children who themselves had special learning needs.
I probably think, I could damage them more than helping them…If I could have been, if I could have been, more educated would I be more loving? Or would I not? I don’t know. (Ann Wilkins)
We can see how skills play a role in shaping experiences and social identities and how they are linked to internal and wider moral discourses about ‘suitability’ for key roles in life. With the men in the sample there is a similar process, where skills can enable or constrain, but they take on a different gendered form. For example Dougie’s first job as a carpet fitter required him to use some basic mathematics to calculate the amounts of carpet needed for each client. Even though Dougie had poor literacy skills similar to those seen with Sally, this did not present the same sorts of problems. After a few years Dougie was promoted to a carpet salesman and spent his time employed in the salesroom. Even here, he managed to cope with his poor literacy skills.
Dougie: I did need skills, I had to read reports, I had to do this and I had to do writing, I had to do, you know. But luckily, the people I worked for were just as bad as me. They couldn’t read or write hardly, so I got away with it.
Interviewer: So they never made it an issue?
Dougie: Not really no. Never made an issue of it. They used to write as – as – as they did and I used to write as I did, I thought, ‘Its good enough for them, its good enough for me’
As long as he was able to draw on some basic mathematics Dougie was able to succeed at work and ‘fit in’, despite his poor literacy - a work culture of poor basic skills enabled this. By contrast, Sally’s workplace valourised good literacy and oracy and they were also a part of the work culture. Skill expectations seem to be shaped by gendered processes and operate in various domains in life. These work at both a formal level in the workplace but also informally where employee culture or individuals themselves shape expectations. These expectations are also framed by wider discourses about skills, gender and acceptable competency (Payne, 2003). Though a skill competency such as reading a text will have a use value to an individual – such skills in a different setting can have a very different social worth. Hence a competency (an ability or inability) can be converted into different costs and benefits in different social settings. For Dougie, a basic grasp of mathematics was an important ‘literacy capital’ and was converted into labour market success, status and income. In Sally’s workplace the literacy expectations were at odds with her literacy practices and so these were experienced as a constraint and a social cost. Though initially she was able to secure the job and associated income and status her literacy practices contributed to an erosion of this labour market position. For Ann her skill difficulties also circumscribed her social identity as a mother. With these examples we can see how literacy practices act as resources that can help or hinder an actor’s efforts to accomplish their goals. Though they may draw on these resources intentionally, at the same time the effect of these practices on others (and how others react to them), are beyond their control - as we see with the difficulties that Sally experienced in the workplace. Literacy practices are functioning here so that they have a socially constructed exchange value and illustrates how the costs and benefits of a particular skill competency can vary greatly depending on how a skill is mediated by other social processes.